


Shadows

by klingonvalhalla



Category: Cat People (1982)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-09
Updated: 2014-07-09
Packaged: 2018-02-08 05:06:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1927710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/klingonvalhalla/pseuds/klingonvalhalla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a rewrite of Irena's encounter with Paul after he confesses their true nature to her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shadows

Two months after arriving in New Orleans, Irena found herself in a house that was not her own with a man who was not her brother. Sitting on a bed, surrounded by photo developing equipment with the stink of chemicals, there was the ever present general odor of a man who lived alone. 

The quilt was stale from disuse and the husks of cloth moth larva were littered over the sheets and under the cheap pillows. She was thankful, of course, but this was a far cry from the crisp, white sheets Femalé regularly laundered. She missed the faint scent of roses that drifted through open windows and rich coffee that was always brewing in the kitchen. 

Oliver bought whatever was cheapest, and when she sat down for breakfast yesterday, the tar colored liquid burned its way down her throat and settled heavy in her stomach. Greasy bacon and microwaved pancakes left her ill for most of the morning.

Choosing to skip breakfast the next morning, Irena found her stomach rumbling uneasily. Oliver wouldn’t return until well after dark, and the clock was stubbornly refusing to tick past three. Taking the phone from the nightstand she called a taxi to take her to the French Quarter. 

She missed the mansions, the people, and the scent of food. Paul was still on the run, but she doubted he would attempt to contact her in such a populated area. 

Irena just wanted some normalcy. Something like she had before Paul got sick, when he would take her to restaurants where the owners knew his name and treated them like celebrities. The brilliant white smile and intense green eyes were a memory that haunted her now. No more dining with the affluent, or being lavished with presents that cost more than her tuition.

Days were spent looking over her shoulder, waiting for that smile to appear behind her. Femalé’s protection vanished once she was charged as an accessory. Seeing the beautiful woman reduced to a gray jumpsuit behind a plexiglass window, without her wraps and makeup, was depressing. Still, she tried to visit when she could. Hand pressed against the barrier, wishing for answers Femalé couldn’t, or wouldn’t give. 

She paused in front of the great house. The gate had a new padlock, and the front door was streaked with yellow police tape. Sugary sweet beignets filled the air when the cafe a block down opened it’s doors. She missed waking up to sugar and roses, followed shortly by coffee and Carven perfume. 

Irena lifted her wrist to her nose and inhaled. Before the police had told her to leave her home for the duration of the investigation, she had grabbed the little bottle Femalé had on the vanity. It felt alien on her skin, the notes sour where it once was warm and inviting. She imagined the bottle hated her for not believing Femalé when she claimed to not have known about the basement. How could she, when she’d lived there long before Paul?

Flashing lights and ripped clothes were still fresh in her mind as she stared at the porch, lined with ivy. What would have happened if that officer hadn’t been in the area? If Paul had caught her, what would he have done?

Madness made him ugly. Her brother, who was a taller, darker version of herself, had become a monster. The smile became an awful maw of teeth, those eyes burned lustful and yellow. When he grabbed her, his fingertips dug into her arms like claws. 

“Maybe he’s not your brother,” Oliver had tried to assure her that night. She wondered if he’d only said as such to make her stay. The tickets to Baltimore sat under a glass of stagnant water beside her bed now, long expired. Money wasted. 

Paul kept money hidden throughout the house. “Just incase” he’d told her when she found a few hundred stuck in a book. A few hundred could get her out of New Orleans and back to her fathers’. It could get her away from the pressure Oliver placed upon her with hungry eyes and a generous wallet. 

The police may have locked the front gate, but the back was left as is. Slipping her finger between the gap, she was able to lift the latch and enter the narrow backyard. Moss covered bricks muffled her steps as she crossed the shaded expanse to the backdoor. Femalé had shown her where the spare key was hidden, in case she got locked out.

Under the hasta closest to the stairs. Her fingers sunk into the black soil and came back with a tarnished bronze key. It crunched into the lock, smearing wet dirt over the handle. 

The scent of coffee was still lingering in the air as she stepped into her home. The chairs were out of order, spread across the kitchen floor. She placed them back neatly around the table before removing her shoes and setting them next to the pair Femalé had left beside the coatrack. The quiet was oppressing. It laid itself across her shoulders and made hair stand on end. 

Unable to shake the feeling of intruding, Irena decided it would be best to hurry. The small library, which housed the family circus memorabilia, and Paul’s office were the most promising places. The library was closest, just across the hall, past the basement door. The black door which stood open into the dungeon bellow.

Irena shuddered as she rushed past the gaping hole. It stank of death and animal. She wondered why she’d never heard the jaguar while she lived in the house. Surely a cat that large would make some sound? If Paul was to be believed, she’d always heard him.

Stupid, she thought, as she pulled books from the shelves and shook them. People don’t turn into jaguars. They can become monsters, just not the sort Paul described. They dreamed of incest and murder. No true jaguar would consider that.

The search yielded only $300 from the library, along with the photo of her parents posing with an underfed lion. Despite the fading, she could still count it’s ribs. While she had no memories of them, she wanted to keep the photo to remember what could have been. 

With dread building in her chest, Irena climbed the stairs to the office. Her bare feet left prints in the dust that had settled on the black hardwood that Femalé had taken so much pride in. Up on her toes, she thought they looked like paw prints. She shivered and dropped to her heels when the image of being stalked by the jaguar from the basement surfaced.

Inside the office Irena felt jittery. She became clumsy as her hands shook. The pen cup scattered pencils and pens across the desk. They tumbled to the floor,  _tick tap_   _tick tap_. It made her stomach twist in knots so violently that she felt dizzy. 

The police had cleared the house, and the detective had a lead that Paul had fled the country. Irena felt silly for being so worried about being caught. $400 was tucked away in the back of the bottom drawer of the desk. She hoped it would be enough to last her until she got back to Maryland, because she didn’t want to stay any longer.

As she reached the stairs, she paused. Her toiletries and most of her clothes were still in the bedroom down the hall. She couldn’t bear to leave them, even if most of them had been gifts from Paul. She’d never have another chance to own authentic Chanel or Louis Vuitton pieces. 

Grimacing, she pushed away from the bannister and crept to her bedroom, past the closed double doors to the master suite. The door to the balcony were still open as she entered. Sheer white curtains ruffled against the floor, sweeping away dust as they grew gray and heavy.

As she busied herself with piling her belongings on her bed, to tie up in the fine duvet, Irena forgot her nervousness. Occupied with the thought of how she’d haul the bundle to the street, she wondered how she’d get to Oliver’s with the load, and still be able to flee before his shift ended. She was scared of how he’d react if she told him that she was leaving. She’d seen the sketchbook filled with her, of her face on a jaguar’s body perverted by three rows of human breasts along it’s belly. She hoped he didn’t know she’d seen.

“The mouse police never do sleep,” the voice made her scream. The pretty glass bottle of pink perfume clattered to the floor, the cap bouncing away to the bathroom with a tittering  _plink plink_.

“Paul,” she refused to look past the figure’s chest as he stood in the doorway.

“What sort of mice are you hunting, my dear sister?” 

He held several bills between his thumb and forefinger, waving them within her field of vision. “All you needed to do was ask, Irena. I’d have given you anything you wanted.”

“But I can’t give you want you want in return.”

“Oh but you will. Once you fuck him you’ll come back to me. You’ll know it’s true when he’s dead and hanging from the branches of a tree for the birds to finish.”

“Stop it!” She shouted. “It’s not real. You’re sick Paul.”

“Don’t be a fool Irena.”

“I’m not a fool. If you turn yourself in you can get help. Please Paul. I want my brother back.” She clenched her fists, nails biting into her palms; hoping he’d listen, hoping her voice was as strong as Femalé’s. 

It took all the courage she could muster to not run when he approached her, arms open. He dropped to his knees before her, dark hair falling into his face, hiding the dark circles and neglected facial hair. She felt his arms squeeze her thighs, his head pressed into her groin. Irena didn’t know what to do. Her hands awkwardly hovered over his crown, unsure if she should touch him, unsure if it would encourage him.

Her heart pounded in her ears when his hands reached up her skirt to grasp her hips. She wanted to fight, to kick and scream, but found herself frozen. Her arms and legs felt like lead, sluggish and uncooperative. 

When he looked up, her stomach dropped. Those green eyes that matched her own were yellow. Yellow like they were the night he attacked her, and exacerbating the darkness that lined the sockets.

She wanted to shout for help. The balcony door stood open, and she could hear people on the sidewalk. Happy people, unhappy people, tourists, and pets. They were all out there, while she was locked inside her own body. Her own body that betrayed her when her loins began to burn as he nuzzled her pubic mound beneath the silk and lace.

His tongue was hot and wet as it ran along the front of her skirt, leaving the fabric damp and clinging. Her blouse was pulled from the waist and pushed up her ribs until his thumbs brushed the underside of her breasts. 

“Are you afraid, sister?”

“Y-yes,” she cried at last, finding the voice which had become so small; too small to shout, to call for help.

Paul stood and she was unable to look away. The hair he’d always kept so neatly pulled back hung loose around his shoulders. The white priest collar had been lost and left the length of his tanned neck exposed. “Don’t be,” his voice had lost the anger and venom. It was the voice she remembered. The one before he changed. While one hand cupped her left breast, the other touched her face, wiping the tears she hadn’t realized fell away. “Our condition is unavoidable, incurable. We can only love our own, or death will surely follow. You’ve seen what it does. How it renders us to monsters-”

“Paul, don’t.”

His fingers grip her chin, forcing her to look up to him. “No,” his voice sharpened and made her cringe. “No,” it grew softer, as if apologizing for frightening her. “You have seen it, Irena. How many times have you woken up with the sheets torn to shreds, and blood in your fingernails? Tell me.”

“F-four, I think. Paul-”

“Did you dream those nights?”

She tried to shake her head, but his grip held firm. Irena closed her eyes and felt them burn as mascara bled into them. “Yes,” she whispered. “I dreamed of you.”

It was true. Those nights she dreamed of her brother with a jaguar’s head and blood on his claws. She would wake to sweat soaked clothes and damp underwear; uncomfortable and ashamed. Femalé would take the sheets away while she showered, and new ones would be waiting for her once she finished; as if nothing had happened.

His breath was hot against her face as he asked: “What did you dream?” His lips brushed over her forehead, and she felt the coarse hair from his chin scratch the bridge of her nose.

“We hunted in red sand.” Her cheeks were scorched by hot tears. “Rabbits, deer-” Irena sobbed, “Oliver.”

She heard him gasp and felt his hips press against her’s. Irena dared to open her eyes and found blackness. She pushed against Paul and saw her fingers had sunk into coarse black fur and frayed cotton.

Above her the jaguar headed figure smiled.


End file.
